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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, 'You will be made free'?"

Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father."

They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father." Then they said to Him, "We were not born of fornication, we have one Father -- God." Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God's words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God."

- John 8:33-47

In the recent readings, Jesus is in Jerusalem at the temple for the Feast of Tabernacles. At this point, He is in a discourse with the leadership, who have sought to have Him arrested but failed to do so when the officers returned to them empty-handed. They exclaimed, "No Man ever spoke like this!" Yesterday, we read that Jesus told them, "I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come." They wondered where He was going. He said, "You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." When they asked, "Who are You?" He replied, "Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true, and I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him." They still didn't understand that He was speaking of the Father. He told them, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him." After that, many believed. To those who believed in Him, He said, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, 'You will be made free'?" The leadership takes pride in their lineage, as descendants of Abraham. My study bible asks, "Who are the true children of Abraham?" It says, "Jesus makes it clear that one lives either by God's way or the devil's way. There is no middle ground." We have to ask what it means to be children of Abraham, too. And, what is freedom?

Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father." My study bible quotes St. John Chrysostom here: "[Jesus] wished to detach them from this racial pride and to deflate their excessive conceit, and to persuade them no longer to place their hope of salvation in Abraham, or in nobility of race according to nature, but in that according to free will. For, this was the thing that prevented them from coming to Christ; namely, they thought their descent from Abraham sufficed for their salvation." What I think is remarkable here is that He is speaking to the leadership specifically. It is they who are experts in the Scripture, in the Law and rabbinical regulation. So what we have to see is essentially their pride of place. As descendants of Abraham, they pride themselves in their lineage. But He's seeking to speak to their hearts, the place of relationship to God the Father of whom He's sent. It's their very pride that keeps them from truly hearing Him. So, we go back to another question raised by Christ in the Gospels, and that must ask what do we truly love? "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father." Here begins a very profound reflection of the Gospels. What does it mean to call someone your father? Is it merely descent, lineage of nature? For Jesus, it means one does the works of one's father. So, who does that mean the real father is of these people to whom He's speaking, the leadership that seeks to kill Him?

Then they said to Him, "We were not born of fornication, we have one Father -- God." Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me." My study bible points out that the word translated proceeded here is different from another word translated "proceeded" which refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit in chapter 15. It says, "Christ's eternal relationship to the Father is one of Sonship rather than procession." The important thing here I believe is to note that sonship and being sent are synonymous: He does the works of God. He bears out God's will in the world. Again, it depends upon what we truly treasure.

"Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God's words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God." My study bible says, "They are not able to listen to His word because they are not willing to learn from Him. Spiritual truth can be genuinely heard only if there is willingness to know God and to do His will." I think it's important that we take note, once again, that this is the leadership He is speaking with, and they are the experts in their religious heritage. But it is they who fail to understand anything of the Scriptures truly, because the love of God isn't in what they are doing. It's their pride that gets in the way, their arrogance and their faith in themselves, essentially. They can't hear Him, He says, because they don't truly love God. There's something else they love more.

While Jesus speaks to the religious leadership of His time, it's important to remember that this is an example for all of us. Jesus has said Himself that many will come in His name. Some of them will be wolves in sheep's clothing. So we can go through the motions and learn and do all sorts of things, but the love of God should bring us closer to God, so that we bear God's works into the world. This is what it means to become sons by adoption. The leadership here stands as an example to us all, an example of what we don't want in our faith: that is, a mere pride in our heritage and ancestors and an insistence on lineage of some sort. Worse, a kind of arrogance that can come with position and authority, one that ignores the true virtue of humility before God without which there is no true virtue at all. So it all comes down to what we love, and what gets in the way of the love of God. Why can't they hear Jesus words? What is truth and where does it truly come from? What makes us really free? Again we note the things that blind us to spiritual truth and the love of God. Let us make our highest ambition service to God's love, and to truly bear God's will in the world. Loyalty to anything else binds us in a kind of slavery, and keeps us from our true heritage and identity, blinding us to what truly might be ours. What do you love most?

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